Fumio
2009
Demon's Souls stands as the blueprint for the Action RPG genre as a whole moving forward, but unfortunately I disagree with the sentiment that this entitles it to strictly praise through nostalgia colored opinion. Some seem to evaluate it more highly solely due to being precursor for the Souls franchise, but after examining it detached from the rest of the franchise I found that I couldn't appreciate it in quite the same way. While its world design and tone are unmatched and deserving of recognition, the atmosphere is for me the main highlight of the game that largely covers its other shortcomings.
Level design in Demon's Souls ultimately boils down to reskinned linear walkways that plays host to repetitive encounters that forces the player to engage enemies one at a time in a row. Sometimes, there's a second enemy stacked on top of the first who will almost always alternate attacks. Even more rarely, there's a third guy shooting arrows at you behind the first two. There's very little room for variety in strategy due to largely only having front and back as options for dodging consistently. This leads to dealing with the occasional larger crowd of enemies being extremely flawed as your only tactics are backing up or blocking until you can sneak in a jab and stagger a few of them with hopes of thinning the herd.
The biggest breakaway from this is somehow also, in my opinion, the worst level of the game, 5-2, which features Miyazaki's first and potentially largest poison swamp. The fastest way through the level is blindly dragging your way through the unrollable swamp water until the end, at which point you can sprint through the remainder of visually clustered and chaotic wooden platforms in a blind fumble for the boss.
Which leads me to the bosses themselves; what about them, after all? They contribute as much to the identity of each stage as the level design itself, so how do they fare?
Well... I can count maybe two bosses that challenge the player mechanically; one being the final real fight of the game, and the other being Flamelurker — who, even then, is terribly simplistic in having just three attacks, but fortunately ramps up in intensity the lower his health gets. The others are a mixed bag. Four or five of the lot have charming gimmicks that offer no real challenge after you grasp the idea — or, even worse yet, the ones who have a frustrating gimmick and are hardly interactive at all. The rest sort of just...don't move from one spot and blindly swing their arms around. There is the exception in this crowd of the beloved Penetrator, who presents as a complete bad-ass initially until you stagger him to death and realize he has no real form of ranged attack or gapcloser to punish healing. The "prey slaughtered" tagline seems oddly more fitting here than it ever did in Bloodborne.
Although Demon's Souls holds a special place as the progenitor of a franchise I'd consider some of the most fun I've had in gaming, I can't hold Demon's Souls to that same level of prestige. It's ultimately a game with little to pick apart in my humble opinion, and little intrigue or variety between runs. I likely won't be revisiting this game a third time.
Level design in Demon's Souls ultimately boils down to reskinned linear walkways that plays host to repetitive encounters that forces the player to engage enemies one at a time in a row. Sometimes, there's a second enemy stacked on top of the first who will almost always alternate attacks. Even more rarely, there's a third guy shooting arrows at you behind the first two. There's very little room for variety in strategy due to largely only having front and back as options for dodging consistently. This leads to dealing with the occasional larger crowd of enemies being extremely flawed as your only tactics are backing up or blocking until you can sneak in a jab and stagger a few of them with hopes of thinning the herd.
The biggest breakaway from this is somehow also, in my opinion, the worst level of the game, 5-2, which features Miyazaki's first and potentially largest poison swamp. The fastest way through the level is blindly dragging your way through the unrollable swamp water until the end, at which point you can sprint through the remainder of visually clustered and chaotic wooden platforms in a blind fumble for the boss.
Which leads me to the bosses themselves; what about them, after all? They contribute as much to the identity of each stage as the level design itself, so how do they fare?
Well... I can count maybe two bosses that challenge the player mechanically; one being the final real fight of the game, and the other being Flamelurker — who, even then, is terribly simplistic in having just three attacks, but fortunately ramps up in intensity the lower his health gets. The others are a mixed bag. Four or five of the lot have charming gimmicks that offer no real challenge after you grasp the idea — or, even worse yet, the ones who have a frustrating gimmick and are hardly interactive at all. The rest sort of just...don't move from one spot and blindly swing their arms around. There is the exception in this crowd of the beloved Penetrator, who presents as a complete bad-ass initially until you stagger him to death and realize he has no real form of ranged attack or gapcloser to punish healing. The "prey slaughtered" tagline seems oddly more fitting here than it ever did in Bloodborne.
Although Demon's Souls holds a special place as the progenitor of a franchise I'd consider some of the most fun I've had in gaming, I can't hold Demon's Souls to that same level of prestige. It's ultimately a game with little to pick apart in my humble opinion, and little intrigue or variety between runs. I likely won't be revisiting this game a third time.
indisputably the funniest souls game ever made
2010
It really does take someone with generational talent and profound thought to write something as clinically stupid as the Dracula dialogue. What an incredible experience this was.
2023
Exceptionally well put together, doesn't overstay its welcome, and offers some briefly engaging logic puzzling. Atmosphere and visuals are perfect as well.
That said it doesn't quite have any real staying power past its incredible first impressions. Double or nothing is fun for a round or two but the player has every advantage in each round shy of some seriously bad item RNG which makes it difficult to remain engaged. I hesitate to call this unfortunate at any rate because the game is perfectly fine as a short, thrilling romp based on an incredibly bizarre premise. A shotgun experience, if you will, even.
That said it doesn't quite have any real staying power past its incredible first impressions. Double or nothing is fun for a round or two but the player has every advantage in each round shy of some seriously bad item RNG which makes it difficult to remain engaged. I hesitate to call this unfortunate at any rate because the game is perfectly fine as a short, thrilling romp based on an incredibly bizarre premise. A shotgun experience, if you will, even.
"Though I called you here to me, it was ever your own feet, your own will that brought you."
Dragon's Dogma is a game that encapsulates the very essence of a game being about the destination rather than the journey. I feel this isn't immediately able to be grasped until the game plays its whole hand. Both the setting and the plot are mundane at best, pitting the player against goblin and cyclops across rolling green hills with incredibly standard sword and board gameplay. The centerpiece of your quest to slay the dragon and restore peace is a single castle-town that plays host to a lineup of characters who are consistently as they appear and no more; stripped back to as-needed personality quirks designed to keep things moving forward, not tropes per se but instead actors playing as set pieces for the progression of plot and world-building sub-stories. I'd argue there is very little frivolous dialogue, everything is seemingly purposed to the ends of your journey as the hero; if not about Grigori directly then about the political state of the kingdom and the duke or about the cult who act in idealization of Grigori.
In this sense there is very little to ultimately consider outstanding, but just the same there is very little that impedes the player from simply experiencing the game and the world laid before them. Dragon's Dogma encourages sandbox exploration and engaging in all that you come across. The rewards are often carefully measured and exciting, very rarely did I feel like I wasted my time on a side venture through a dungeon or a side quest. I'd say this is in part due to an extremely satisfying progression system and the freedom of experimenting with different classes and skills, though I did find myself wanting for more cross-class options.
Dragon's Dogma fully understands what it is, a facet of its being that ultimately decides whether any individual will love or hate the experience; it offers itself humbly as an experience to be immersed in, not as a story that intends to tell itself. It becomes so natural to get lost in the world handed to you on a silver platter; which is further serviced by the game's ending in a more meta sense.
There's a lot at play I could speak on. The pawn system's ingenuity, how each class feels like an entirely different game to play, how the DLC functionally drags the entire game up a full letter grade. Honestly these things cannot be explained, but are instead tactile in nature; words cannot mirror experiencing. I figure it's best to leave it at that.
[Disclaimer: I played the game with a mod that removes stamina usage when sprinting. The game is borderline unbearable early game without it, and my score takes that into consideration. Mileage may vary without such a mod among other possible QOL mods that exist, though this was the only one I used.]
Dragon's Dogma is a game that encapsulates the very essence of a game being about the destination rather than the journey. I feel this isn't immediately able to be grasped until the game plays its whole hand. Both the setting and the plot are mundane at best, pitting the player against goblin and cyclops across rolling green hills with incredibly standard sword and board gameplay. The centerpiece of your quest to slay the dragon and restore peace is a single castle-town that plays host to a lineup of characters who are consistently as they appear and no more; stripped back to as-needed personality quirks designed to keep things moving forward, not tropes per se but instead actors playing as set pieces for the progression of plot and world-building sub-stories. I'd argue there is very little frivolous dialogue, everything is seemingly purposed to the ends of your journey as the hero; if not about Grigori directly then about the political state of the kingdom and the duke or about the cult who act in idealization of Grigori.
In this sense there is very little to ultimately consider outstanding, but just the same there is very little that impedes the player from simply experiencing the game and the world laid before them. Dragon's Dogma encourages sandbox exploration and engaging in all that you come across. The rewards are often carefully measured and exciting, very rarely did I feel like I wasted my time on a side venture through a dungeon or a side quest. I'd say this is in part due to an extremely satisfying progression system and the freedom of experimenting with different classes and skills, though I did find myself wanting for more cross-class options.
Dragon's Dogma fully understands what it is, a facet of its being that ultimately decides whether any individual will love or hate the experience; it offers itself humbly as an experience to be immersed in, not as a story that intends to tell itself. It becomes so natural to get lost in the world handed to you on a silver platter; which is further serviced by the game's ending in a more meta sense.
There's a lot at play I could speak on. The pawn system's ingenuity, how each class feels like an entirely different game to play, how the DLC functionally drags the entire game up a full letter grade. Honestly these things cannot be explained, but are instead tactile in nature; words cannot mirror experiencing. I figure it's best to leave it at that.
[Disclaimer: I played the game with a mod that removes stamina usage when sprinting. The game is borderline unbearable early game without it, and my score takes that into consideration. Mileage may vary without such a mod among other possible QOL mods that exist, though this was the only one I used.]
2020
It's incredible how heavily the narrative of "for a game about observation the timer is really polluting the entire experience" as if the timer isn't only a necessity in the pursuit of a perfect file and as if the levels aren't designed with the intention of replayability. You are only as limited by the timer as you feel the need to be, and I think that speaks volumes more about the individual than the game's arbitrary score attack elements.
That said Umurangi Generation isn't a perfect game by any means, namely dragged down by jank controls and sometimes awkward placement of objectives that feel as if they intrinsically limit creativity behind the player's approach. Yet overall the game's stellar visuals, themes, and especially the soundtrack are indisputably all bangers. There's a clear Evangelion influence present that took me by surprise, but wholly welcomed, and I believe it's perfectly encapsulated by the set pieces in a way that generates an extremely eerie atmosphere that is wholly unique to itself. It provides the player with the inescapable sensation of being a spectator to something much greater, and Macro further expands upon that with some of the best levels of the entire game in my opinion.
It's a short, tight experience that I don't regret at all.
That said Umurangi Generation isn't a perfect game by any means, namely dragged down by jank controls and sometimes awkward placement of objectives that feel as if they intrinsically limit creativity behind the player's approach. Yet overall the game's stellar visuals, themes, and especially the soundtrack are indisputably all bangers. There's a clear Evangelion influence present that took me by surprise, but wholly welcomed, and I believe it's perfectly encapsulated by the set pieces in a way that generates an extremely eerie atmosphere that is wholly unique to itself. It provides the player with the inescapable sensation of being a spectator to something much greater, and Macro further expands upon that with some of the best levels of the entire game in my opinion.
It's a short, tight experience that I don't regret at all.
2020
Picked this up and played it on a whim while browsing itch.io games. Unsure why there are so many poor reviews; it was a genuinely enjoyable ride from start to finish and is surprisingly well put together for what I expected of it. It was maybe more funny than scary, but there were several cool moments and it was surprisingly visually striking at times. None of the puzzles were particularly obtrusive, though maybe a little too simple at its most offensive, but it keeps the story moving along - which I found wound up being a little more engaging than it maybe had any right being.
I wouldn't call it a masterpiece by any means - but it remains competent, and stands out as a unique concept that executes on its core idea. It's an overall short enough game that it's worth giving it a try start to finish - even if you wind up disliking it, at worst the ragdoll baby is still pretty fucking funny. Looking forward to seeing the game at full release.
I wouldn't call it a masterpiece by any means - but it remains competent, and stands out as a unique concept that executes on its core idea. It's an overall short enough game that it's worth giving it a try start to finish - even if you wind up disliking it, at worst the ragdoll baby is still pretty fucking funny. Looking forward to seeing the game at full release.